By Eapen Thampy, on October 5th, 2011% Our friends at California NORML just sent out this press release:
SAN FRANCISCO – In yet another attack by the Obama administration on medical marijuana, US Attorneys in California have sent out a series of letters threatening landlords with property forfeiture for renting their property to dispensaries deemed too close to “sensitive areas” such as schools and parks.
Prominent among the targets is the state’s longest-operating dispensary, the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax,
which enjoys official support from the city and has been operating without complaint since July 3rd, 1996. In a threatening letter to
MAMM’s landlord, the US Attorney for Northern California warned that MAMM was operating within a “prohibited distance of a park.” It goes on to warn the landlord that he could be liable for imprisonment of up to 40 years, forfeiture of the property, and
forfeiture of all rental proceeds from the last 15 years for violating federal law if MAMM isn’t evicted.
Other dispensary landlords in the state have received threatening federal letters for operating too close to schools, even though they
are abiding with state regulations. Under state law, dispensaries are forbidden to operate within 600 feet of schools, the same distance as liquor stores. However, a federal law, Title 21 USC 860, imposes additional penalties for sales or distribution of controlled
substances within 1,000 feet of schools, colleges, playgrounds, and a host of other areas; the law was originally intended to prevent drug dealing at schools, but is being used by US Attorneys to harass otherwise inoffensive collectives. The Marin Alliance is sited within 1,000 feet of Bolinas Park, where there is a little league playground; the dispensary closes during little league games.
“This is nuts,” says Greg Anton, attorney for the Marin Alliance and its director, Lynnette Shaw. ”There’s a dispensary near where I
live that sells guns, narcotics, alcohol and tobacco and it’s full of children. It’s called Walmart, and it’s safe. So is Lynnette’s
place. She’s proven that over 15 years.”
California NORML denounced the DOJ action as an example of unwarranted federal overregulation. ”It’s an outrageous abuse of law
enforcement resources for the DOJ to use property forfeiture to enforce meddlesome, nanny-state regulations,” said Cal NORML Director Dale Gieringer. “The federal government has no business dictating local zoning decisions. No one has any problems with the Marin Alliance except the bureaucrats in Washington.”
The federal crackdown is the latest of a series of actions by the Obama administration aimed at harassing and crippling state-
recognized medical marijuana distributors. The IRS has assessed crippling penalties on tax-paying dispensaries by denying standard
expense deductions; the Department of Treasury has browbeaten banks into closing accounts of medical marijuana clients; and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms BATF has warned firearms dealers to treat medical marijuana patients like drug addicts and forbid them from buying guns.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration has continued to block federal approval of medical marijuana. The DEA recently rejected a nine-year-old petition to reschedule marijuana for medical use, disregarding scores of scientific studies that have shown marijuana’s efficacy. In its reply, the DEA claimed that it would only accept large-scale, controlled FDA trials. In a Catch-22, however, the DEA has deliberately blocked such trials from happening by refusing to approve the licensing of a private production facility to supply
marijuana for medical research and development at the University of Massachusetts. The only existing legal source for research marijuana in the country is the National Institute for Drug Abuse, which recently blocked a request to study marijuana for treatment of PTSD and has said that it has no intention of developing its marijuana for medical use.
The federal government’s failure to allow medical use of marijuana remains an unwarranted source of confusion, frustration, and legal
problems for patients, providers, public officials and law enforcement alike. The administration’s war on dispensaries also threatens to
have adverse economic impacts on jobs and tax revenues. Cal NORML estimates that the state’s medical marijuana industry now accounts for some $1.5 – 4.5 billion in sales, tens of thousands jobs, and over $100 million in taxes. ”In this time of economic hardship, it makes absolutely no sense to drive legal medical marijuana providers out of business, force consumers onto the criminal market, and suppress this economical alternative to more costly but less efficacious prescription medicines,” says Gieringer.
Cal NORML urges supporters to call on the administration to end the federal attack on state medical marijuana laws and reschedule
marijuana for medical use. White House Hotline: 202-456-1111. On-line petitions at <https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/stop-denying-medical-value-cannabis-marijuana-remove-it-schedule-one-controlled-substances-act/kHXv82NR
AND <https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/remove-marijuana-schedule-1-list-drugs-controlled-substances-act/D2J2ZdX4
Congressional bills to fix medical marijuana laws include the ”States’ Medical Marijuana Protection Act, HR 1983 [Rep. Frank];
the ”Ending Prohibition Act” HR 2306 [Frank], the Small Business Banking Improvement Act HR 1984 [Polis] and/or the Small Business
Equity Tax Act HR 1985 [ Stark].
Contact: Dale Gieringer (510) 540-1066 dale@canorml.org
(End of Release)
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KGO – ABC Report:
Feds target pot clubs located too close to schools
10/4/2011
Updated at 06:52 PM today
Vic Lee
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8379212
Watch video story (3:14) - http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/video?id=8379202
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The federal government is going after medical marijuana dispensaries that are too close to schools by targeting the buildings that have pot clubs as tenants.e
Sultan Alkhraisat owns a medical marijuana dispensary in the back of a cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District. The pot club is half a block away from the San Francisco Friends School. In fact, there are several other cannabis dispensaries near Friends and two other schools.
Alkhraisat declined to be interviewed, but he did confirm that the owner of his building received a letter from the U.S. Attorney last week. It said, ”there is a marijuana dispensary operating…within a prohibited distance of a school.” And that it “may result in criminal prosecution, imprisonment, fines and forfeiture of assets.”
ABC7 has learned that the same letter has been sent to many other pot clubs operating in Northern California.
Even though medical marijuana is allowed by the state, any type of marijuana is illegal under federal law.
The U.S. Attorney’s office declined to be interviewed, but a spokesperson said they are targeting dispensaries which are operating within 1,000 feet of schools.
“That is a legitimate rule and it makes sense when it’s so close to a school,” Mission District resident Dave Blair said.
Attorney Brendan Hallinan represents pot club owners and their landlords. He believes the government is waging a quiet campaign against his clients.
“They’re not, you know, kicking in doors and taking people to jail, but they’re creating a climate that’s making it nearly impossible for
medical cannabis collectives to survive,” Hallinan said.
Hallinan adds that major and regional banks have recently stopped doing business with dispensaries, and that they can no longer get accounts with those banks and the IRS no longer allows them to write off business expenses.
The U.S. Attorney in Sacramento sent out a similar letter last week to building owners in the eastern part of the state.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_francisco&id=8379212
By Eapen Thampy, on March 15th, 2011% Yesterday, federal agencies led by the Department of Homeland Security raided roughly 12 medical marijuana dispensaries operating in Montana, where medical marijuana is legal. This appears to be a thinly veiled attempt to influence the Montana state legislature, which was holding hearings on the repeal of the medical marijuana law, which had been approved by voters. You can find more current information here.
Last year, NORML’s Paul Armentano wrote an op-ed in which he optimistically claimed that:
“…In short, the only way to fully protect all our citizens from these kinds of abhorrent events (SWAT raids) is through the legalization and regulation of marijuana for all adults.”
This is the conventional wisdom in the drug policy reform community, that successful marijuana legalization efforts will end SWAT raids and other violent enforcement tactics that are part and parcel of the War on Drugs. Lately, it has also been echoed by other notables in drug policy reform (Morgan Fox at the MPP comes to mind).
But it is wrong. It is wrong because the War on Drugs exists independent of marijuana prohibition. Ending marijuana prohibition is a necessary and liberty-enhancing imperative for this country, but it alone will not end the military-style raids on severely ill patients and businesses operating lawfully under state law.
It is common knowledge in the drug policy reform community that these raids are money-making ventures. We know that when federal agents raid lawful marijuana dispensaries they take money and jewelry from patients, seize the bank accounts of the business, and take nearly anything else of monetary value.
What is not commonly known or understood is how implicated these seizures are in the very foundation of the Drug War. A 1992 report on the Department of Justice’s new asset forfeiture programs notes:
“…They are based on a simple and clear set of objectives, namely to disrupt drug trafficking, take the profits out of crime, and pour the money or assets from these illegal activities back into the War on Drugs…” (emphasis mine)
Note the direct intent of the Department of Justice: to create an off-budget, non-appropriated revenue stream to fund a War on Drugs. Taxpayers would not be so amenable to the militarization and federalization of domestic law enforcement if they had to pay for it, so the DOJ created a mechanism to end-run the entire democratic appropriations process.
The asset forfeiture system now exists to funnel money from the Department of Justice to the Pentagon (for military equipment like Bearcat tanks, .50 caliber rifles, and to otherwise fund the domestic military/security/surveillance apparatus). It is this money that pays for the raids in Montana, and the money that can be seized from these raids is the reason why these raids will continue.
It is this mechanism, these asset forfeiture laws, that allows the seizure of property for the direct profit of law enforcement. This represents the critical, weak link at the heart of the War on Drugs; without the revenue stream to pay for this war, it would not exist. Moreover, a systemic incentive for government overreach would not exist, and our federal law enforcement would be far more in tune with the desires of legislators and citizens (which one might think would be appropriate for any kind of democratic governance).
There are 217 federal laws allowing the civil, criminal, or administrative forfeiture of property and some 30 federal agencies that split an annual haul that I estimate to be between $15 and $20 billion dollars per year. Against this reckless host, marijuana law reform is like cutting a head off a Hydra; there are innumerable ways to circumvent these reforms though administrative law.
So here’s what I say. Marijuana law reform is vital. But without disconnecting the incentive structure that allows the Drug War to exist, we are fighting a war of attrition by an enemy that repeatedly outflanks us on every side. Even where medical marijuana reform has been passed, we are seeing repeated and continuing efforts by a variety of federal agencies to deny the legitimacy of democratically created state law. We’ve already seen the IRS start by auditing and seizing legitimate businesses in California, and now Homeland Security is leading the raids in Montana in an obvious political play to influence the actions of the state legislature. Across America, even doctors have found themselves the victim of raids for daring to prescribe pain medications to severely ill individuals. I’d lay good money on the proposition that the EPA, with its broad administrative power to search and seize property, may soon get into the game. (Does anyone remember Donald Scott?)
Worse, federal agencies have an incentive to lobby legislators to expand the scope of criminal conduct as a means to take more property from more people. This is a vicious, sick feedback loop: to ensure that forfeiture money keeps pouring into federal coffers, the DEA, BATF, and DHS (among others) will this year continue to recommend to Congress that we increase the scope of activities defined by law as “criminal”.
There can be no more serious issue in American governance. The existence of unaccountable, uncontrollable federal agencies who control their own funding will gut American democracy. The old Soviet ghost now animates the American police state.
Drug policy reformers should heed this call to re-engage the challenge of reforming America’s asset forfeiture laws. You’ll find it makes your marijuana reform efforts more successful, since government officials will no longer have an incentive to look for ways to circumvent your democratically won victories.
By Eapen Thampy, on October 13th, 2010% Charles Frye sends me a copy of a brief from the Gun Owners Foundation titled “BATF Firearms Forfeiture Procedures and Policies: An Attorney Guide“. It contains a valuable analysis of the federal laws governing the forfeiture of guns and firearms, along with a detailed walkthrough of administrative and civil forfeiture procedure. It is a must read for any gun owner or attorney involved in a federal gun forfeiture matter. From the introduction:
This guide was commissioned by Gun Owners Foundation to provide practical assistance to an attorney representing a gun owner or Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) seeking relief from civil proceedings initiated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (“BATF”) to effect the forfeiture of firearms or ammunition seized by BATF.
It has been prepared because, in doing their own research and analysis assisting attorneys in the field, the authors have not found any single authoritative source that provides a practicing attorney with a practical and useful overview of BATF civil forfeiture practices and policies.
The reader should keep in mind that this is not a general manual on asset forfeiture, and is not even a complete treatment with respect to firearms forfeiture. It is essentially an overview of the firearm forfeiture process vis-a-vis apparent BATF practice. As indicated below, for example, BATF seizure and forfeiture procedures themselves may differ depending upon which title of the U.S. Code — Title 18 or Title 26 — is claimed as the foundation for the BATF action. This guide does not attempt to analyze whether BATF’s procedures are correct.
I excerpt this section to highlight the fact that there is a significant lack of scholarship, both legal and academic, that describes the extent, nature, and use of civil and criminal forfeiture laws in the United States. If you would like to support future scholarship in this area, click here.
I should also recommend this article by James Jeffries, also with the Gun Owners Foundation, on what to do when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms comes knocking. Jeffries is a former Department of Justice official, and is bitingly critical of the government’s expansive law enforcement practices. Money quote from the section on Raids:
When a raid team shows up at your premises and announces (usually by breaking down your door, sometimes by killing your dogs and throwing flash bang grenades at your women and children) that they have a federal search warrant, you must instantly do several things. You must first of all mentally assimilate the fact that they are law officers rather than a rampaging motorcycle gang (which they often resemble in both appearance and behavior). Having identified them as law rather than outlaw, you must freeze in place in a non-threatening posture and attempt to stabilize the situation until some of their law-enforcement adrenalin (the most dangerous drug on the street) has bled off…
Ah, doesn’t that sound familiar?
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